|
The
EU is considering going ahead with a bloc-wide tax on digital
services offered by companies such as Google and Amazon if a
global deal to rewrite rules for cross-border taxation is not
reached by mid 2021.
Efforts at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD) to update the rules for the era of digital
commerce stalled this year. Donald Trump's administration balked
at the prospect of signing up to a multilateral deal shortly
before the presidential election.
EU heads of state and government are due to take a look at the
situation in March and decide what course of action the bloc
should take, the French Finance Ministry source said.
"Obviously, March was not chosen by chance. March will be two
months after Biden takes office ... We hope to have contacts
within these two months with the new American administration,"
the source said.
"Depending on what the Biden administration says, the European
Council - it's at the level of EU heads of state and government
- will give guidelines in March," the source added.
France is pushing its EU partners to prepare an EU digital tax
in early 2021 that could be quickly applied in case the talks at
the OECD fail again by mid year.
Paris has its own national digital tax, but has pledged to scrap
it as soon as there is an international deal. It suspended the
levy this year until December while negotiations at the OECD
were under way.
(Reporting by Leigh Thomas, editing by Larry King)
[© 2020 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2020 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
|
|
